So, what’s new? Had the chance to play a major upcoming videogame recently, now I’m juggling between what I want to say in my review and what the studios involved are adamant about me not saying… Even when they’ve spoiled several things themselves. Tough job. On the other hand, Dragon Quest IX is occupying my time and I haven’t even touched multiplayer. Also, I’ve put down why I feel Resident Evil 5is better than Resident Evil 4, although this comes a year too late. Not that my impressions would sway the hardcore hive mind of giving it a chance, but better late than ever. And oh look, links:

“To succeed in Free-to-Play, explore human weaknesses”. So says Teut Weidemann, lead designer of Settlers Online at Ubisoft. Basically, Weidemann believes that the success model of games in this area is found by monetizing areas where players are more psychologically vulnerable. “We have to bring players in and keep them addicted and make them keep playing. Selling advantages is seen as evil. That’s over for free-to-play games”. Weidemann then ilustrates the seven deadly sins as aspects found on certain gamers’ profiles, and as such, areas that can be monetized through a game’s system. It *sounds* terrible, and many comments on the article attack it, but… Isn’t that how the dominant infrastructures of videogames operate nowadays? One only has to look at achievements and trophies: an example of how an entire culture of competition was built upon human envy and vanity.

How to revitalize a genre? When Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest was released in 1987, Konami thought they were answering that question, although the industry and the audience weren’t mature enough to consider it. Some anger was to be expected, but no one imagined that its design would only be accepted ten years later with Symphony of the Night. In the space between both titles, Castlevania became a game aimed at a market; after Koji Igarashi took on the mantle of series producer, little or nothing changed. Eventually someone – maybe Igarashi himself – decided to look at the audience with newfound respect. Order of Ecclesia gave back friction to the combat, showed that “challenge” could once again be more than cublicles infested with repeating sprites, and that it had more to offer than bishōnen and spasmodic role-play. It only took eleven years since Symphony, and the result is closer to Rondo of Blood – the last “traditional” Castlevania with brains and brawn.

Part insurrection, part teenage whimsy, Resident Evil 5 was another victim of the same kind of public opinion although the erratic reception it got from critics and players had other reasons. Critics fired off the “racism” shots in the hopes of bringing maturity to videogame discussion; players pointed their fingers at Jun Takeuchi, the game’s producer, in the vain hope of electing him as sole responsible for a “terrible” change; Capcom, haunted by the same specter that ensnared Konami, stated that Resident Evil 6 would be a reboot of the series – even before RE5 was published. As if apologizing for the game.

Like other studios, Capcom has shown that even understanding the base design of their own games, they can apply the formula both spectacularly well and terribly wrong. But this wasn’t the case, and only critics desperately looking to remain relevant and a change fearing audience could have scared Capcom like that. In spite of the similarities that it shares with Resident Evil 4, the differences are where it goes beyond the sequel. It took a pretty slick format, only reconfiguring the necessary elements to create something recognizable (and still entirely worth of the Resident Evil name) but superior to what came before.

“These publishers are all hoping to surf the recent wave of unusual mainstream media attention for their medium after a book entitled Chevy Brayne was hailed as the closest literature has yet come to fulfilling its promise as a fusion of 1980s hair-metal with edgy contemporary dance. A 15-year-old reviewer for the Guardian wrote: “Arguments have raged for centuries over whether books can really be art. But with its hypnotic elbow jerking and heavily chorused guitar solos, Chevy Brayne puts that issue definitively to rest.” Among the hardcore reading fraternity, on the other hand, some notes of scepticism were sounded. “The writer of this book promised us for years that it wouldn’t be what it looked like in demos, which is essentially just one word after another in a linear order,” fumed one enraged nerd. “And yet, for all the body-popping in baggy Y-fronts and squealing pinched harmonics, that’s exactly what it is. I might as well be reading Nicholas sodding Nickleby”. Steven Poole imagines an alternative reality in which literature, much like videogames, is attacked by the press. The result is fantastic.